


Bargains & Curses

by a_taller_tale



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Angst, Fae & Fairies, Gen, Project Freelancer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-08 22:55:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8866669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_taller_tale/pseuds/a_taller_tale
Summary: Carolina was taught well. You always pay your debts. Bargains are binding. Words are power.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anneapocalypse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse/gifts).



> Written for this [prompt](http://anneapocalypse.tumblr.com/post/154439188116/a-taller-tale-anneapocalypse-norths-little) by [anneapocalypse](http://archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse/pseuds/anneapocalypse). Also inspired by [ZaliaChimera](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ZaliaChimera/pseuds/ZaliaChimera)’s [The New Order](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4271070) which everyone should read.

Carolina was taught well. You always pay your debts. Bargains are binding. Words are power. She cannot leave her debt to Maine unanswered. The first AI is his. 

Maine is the first to be implanted. Sigma whispers to him at night. Tells him he will give him a voice. Maine would give a lot to be understood again and agrees with no second thoughts, but Sigma never said the voice would be his own. 

Tex has always been distant from their group. A little otherworldly. They never see her eat or sleep or change out of her pitch-colored armor. If you cause her an offense you cannot win any sort of game, challenge, or match for no less than three days and no more than seven. When Omega becomes her partner, she becomes sharper. More easily challenged. People start to die. 

Delta has a lot of rules. York only notices because he doesn’t have a lot of rules, but now he has one working eye and an AI that will only tell truths, that calls plays on words deceptions. But Delta can wield truth more skillfully than York can lie, and his truth moves York more easily than he can manipulate a lock. 

Gamma is a liar. He likes tricks. He and Wyoming get along famously. Some of the lower level agents start to disappear around then. On Gamma’s instruction the triplets walk through a door they’ve never seen before and never come out again. Sometimes you can hear laughing and counting in the walls.

North loves Theta. He talks to the little AI constantly, endeavors to make sure Theta is comfortable, safe. Feels loved. “Will we really be together forever, North?” Theta asks often. “Forever, buddy,” North says with a fond smile, eyes dull. He’s lost weight. Theta’s light grows brighter every day.

Carolina’s moods change more than the texture of the ocean during a storm. Instead of improving with the twins, she becomes more reckless. She doesn’t sleep. She races down the halls chasing shadows just out of reach. The twins were not meant for her, and all three of them know it. She is one of their kind and they can smell it and are bound to accept no more bargains from her family. They sing and shriek at night with voices of sirens, they tell her the future, and they’ll never stop, whether she’s asleep or awake. But she is Carolina. Stronger than any blood or magic or curse. Still she rails. 

Connie dies and Wash would do anything for her to come back. Epsilon stops screaming when he hears. Quiets. The trade is nothing. A lifetime of David’s memories and the promise of revenge to see CT again. The CT he meets is not the one he meant and the body is already rotted.

Separated from his brothers Epsilon seems less fierce. The screaming is only unbearable when Carolina is too near Washington. Epsilon is the last of them, and her burden to bear as the last of her family. The blood debt can never be paid off. This curse is hers now.


End file.
